Report reaching us has it that the author of Last Days at Forcados High School, Dr. Ayobami Hanif Mohammed, is on the verge of suing the Joint admission and matriculation board and Cassava Republic Press (The publisher of Last Days at Forcados High School ) over what he described as conspiracy to violate his copyrights.
The book which we learnt was written by Mohammed in 2006 while he was a student of the University of Lagos (UNILAG) was accepted by JAM,B in 2014 as the the recommended handbook for candidates in the Use of English on the recommendation of Fafunwa Educational Foundation.
The owner of Cassava Republic Press, Ms Bibi Bakare-Yusuf, was said to have signed an agreement with JAMB on behalf of the author for the book to be used between 2014 and 2017. Terms and conditions for the contract was agreed upon and signed by the parties concerned.
However, after signing agreement with JAMB in 2014, the publisher turned around on the initial contract by asking Mohammed to accept a lower royalty which the author refused based on the fact that the fresh proposal was a violation of the initial contract.
According to him, his refusal to accept the offer and other issues arising from the disagreement, made his book to be replaced by JAMB with another book from the same publisher as the recommended text n the Use of English for 2017 UTME candidates.
Reacting to his development, , JAMB spokesperson, Dr. Fabian Benjamin said, “We had an understanding with Cassava Republic, not the author. I don’t even know the author. The copies we are using for the direct entry candidates are the books we paid for last year, except the author wants us to return it so he would refund our money.”
On the sudden change of the book to the new one after persuasion by the registrar failed, he said, I’m not privy to the meeting with the registrar, like I said earlier; we had an understanding with the publisher not the author.”
